To celebrate the release of Orange Is the New Black Season 5, Liam Hoofe takes a look back at the show’s best moments so far…
Orange Is the New Black is back, and I for one, couldn’t be more excited. The Netflix original, produced by Jenji Kohan, is one of the most consistent shows on TV right now and season 5 could well be the show’s most explosive outing yet.
Season 4 was the show’s most gripping and devastating yet, and with emotions beginning boiling over in the season finale, season 5 looks set to be even more exciting.
What has given Orange Is the New Black such a devoted fanbase is its wonderful writing, its boldness when it comes to facing difficult topics, and its diverse array of characters. Over the last four years we have laughed and cried in equal measure and to celebrate the release of season 5, I’m going to take a look back at fifteen of the show’s finest moments so far.
15: A Very Merry Christmas
Let’s get things started with one of the show’s nicer moments. Season 1 was the perfect introduction to the inmates of Litchfield Pen and the Christmas pageant at the end of it was a nice way of bringing them all together for a big moment.
While protagonist Piper was elsewhere, the remaining inmates came together to deliver a Christmas performance. Yoga Jones, Cindy, and Suzanne were among those to give performances but the real star of the show was Poussey, whose performance of Amazing Grace was awe-inspiring and was one of the many, many things that made her one of the show’s most loved characters. Also, who could forget Nora finally breaking her silence!
14: Piper the Nazi
Piper may have left a permanent reminder of herself on one of her ex-lovers in season 3, but Karma’s a bitch and what she got left with in season 4 was a whole lot worse.
Having angered the Latino community in the prison by inadvertently building relationships with a bunch of neo-nazis, Piper was kidnapped and taken to the kitchen where she forcibly had a swastika branded onto her arm.
The scene was not only physically distressing but for the first time in quite a while, it made you really feel for Piper, especially as pretty much the whole prison had turned its back on her by this point.
13: Judy King, Yoga Jones, and Luschek
Okay, so there are a lot of really funny moments in Orange Is the New Black, especially last season, but this one really killed me.
During a prison lockdown, Luschek, Yoga Jones, and celebrity chef Judy King decide to make their night a little interesting and take some party drugs. Things got very weird, very fast though and by the end of the episode they were involved in the most bizarre sex scene the show has ever given us, and that’s saying something.
12: Crazy Eyes Marks her Territory
Crazy Eyes has grown into one of the show’s most adored characters, and it’s a fine testament to the show that they have managed to form such a unique and endearing presence on-screen.
She wasn’t always the empathetic character she is now, though and when we first met her in season 1, it was difficult to envision what she would become. Back in season 1 she was straight up crazy and her infatuation with Piper was one of the season’s best storylines.
The best moment of this, though, was when she took a piss by Piper’s bed, claiming that was she marking her territory. This set a standard for comedy for the rest of the show to follow and is still hilarious after several rewatches.
11: Alex and Piper’s First Kiss
Okay, so at this point in the show the whole Alex/Piper situation has more than run its course, but back in season 1 this was essential viewing and the sexual chemistry between them was incredibly tangible.
This all come to a head towards the end of the first season when, following an argument with Healy, Piper finally give into temptation and got down and dirty with Alex in the prison chapel, of all places.
10: The Chicken
Like with most shows I now absolutely adore, I was skeptical about Orange is the New Black to begin with. The first episode didn’t particularly sell me and I suspected that the whole thing was just going to be about a rich white girl discovering that the world wasn’t as rosy as she thought while also learning poor people had souls as well. Obviously, I was wrong, and the first moment that really swung me was the introduction of the legendary chicken at the beginning of season 1.
When Piper claimed she had seen a chicken in the yard, there was no way she could have predicted the reaction she would get. The chicken had become somewhat of a legend in the prison, with several inmates trying and failing to capture it over the years. Red, who had otherwise been a villain so far in the show instantly transformed in that episode, as she told Piper and us about her seemingly never-ending battle to capture the chicken, only to be outsmarted at every turn. It was television gold and after that, I never looked back.
9: Alex, Lolly, and Frieda
This storyline, from the start of season 4, had a little bit of everything. It was gruesome, darkly comic and in the end, very sad.
In the season’s very first episode Alex was forced to kill a guard, who had been sent in by Kubra, her former boss, out of self-defense. Except, she didn’t quite finish the job and Lolly, the prison’s local conspiracy theorist, walked in at just the wrong moment. Believing him to be a secret agent, she finished Alex’s job for her and the duo were left with a corpse on their hands.
Queue the arrival of Frieda, one of the Prison’s more senior members. Frieda had been largely a supporting character in the show’s first three seasons but as it turned out, she knew quite a bit about the art of murder. The trio finished the episode butchering the body in one of the show’s more gruesome scenes.
This whole episode then sent Lolly into a downward spiral mentally and the events that followed it were both hilarious (Frieda’s nonchalance about murder) and heartbreaking (Lolly’s descent into further illness). It was a brilliant storyline and hopefully we will see it continue somewhat this season.
Click below to continue on for the top 8 moments…
